Chapter 134 Everything Breaks
The heavy steel broadsword slammed into Klaus’s right shoulder.
Silver blood sprayed across the ivory steps of the dais. Klaus let out a ragged grunt, his knees buckling under the sheer force of the strike, but he didn't go down. He drove his forehead directly into the guard’s faceplate, caving the steel inward with a sickening crunch of bone and metal.
"Unlock the collar!" Klaus choked out, blood pouring from a fresh cut on his cheek. He stood over me, using his broad, bleeding back to shield me from the swarming guards.
I grabbed the heavy iron ring of keys with both hands. My fingers were slick with Thorne's blood, shaking so violently I could barely separate the metal shapes. The chain connecting my wrists snagged on the thick fabric of my black silk skirt, pulling my arms down.
I forced the largest key into the rusted mechanism of the collar burning his throat.
Before I could turn it, a heavy, mailed boot slammed squarely into the center of my chest.
All the air vanished from my lungs in a sharp, agonizing rush. I was thrown backward, flying across the polished marble. I hit the jagged base of the obsidian block hard, the back of my head bouncing against the black glass. The world spun in a dizzying, dark blur. The iron keys flew from my bloody fingers, skidding far across the floor, completely out of reach.
"Nerissa!" Klaus screamed, his voice tearing.
He tried to turn toward me, but they swarmed him.
Without his immortal speed, and drained by the burning runes of the collar, he was simply outmatched by the sheer number of armored guards. Six elite soldiers tackled him at once. They didn't fight him with blades; they used the heavy wooden shafts of their halberds, bludgeoning his back, his ribs, and his knees.
Klaus fought like a demon, throwing two men off his back, but a third guard drove the butt of a halberd directly into the back of his skull.
Klaus collapsed onto the blood-stained marble, his massive frame hitting the floor with a heavy, defeated thud.
Through the blood-bond, an explosion of blinding, sickening agony ripped through my own head. I gasped, my vision going entirely black for a fraction of a second. The phantom pain paralyzed my limbs. I lay slumped against the obsidian block, panting, watching helplessly as the guards piled onto him.
They dragged his arms outward, pinning his chained wrists to the floor. A guard planted a heavy steel boot squarely on the center of Klaus’s spine, grinding the unhealed cuts into the stone.
"Hold him down," the Emperor’s voice cut through the chaos. It was cold, sharp, and entirely devoid of panic.
I forced my eyes open, blinking through the stinging sweat and blood.
The Emperor glided down the steps of the dais. He didn't look at Thorne’s dead body. He walked directly toward me, stopping inches from where I lay against the rock.
"You truly believed you could outsmart me in my own court," the Emperor whispered, his blind, milky eyes staring down at my ruined face. "You thought you could break the rules of the board with a single piece of glass."
I glared up at him. I couldn't breathe properly, my ribs aching from the kick, but I bared my teeth in a bloody, feral snarl.
"I will turn this entire Citadel to ash," I choked out, the words scraping painfully out of my throat. "I will sing until your bones vibrate into dust."
The Emperor smiled. It was a terrifying, hollow thing.
"You will sing nothing," he replied softly. He turned his head, facing the guards holding Klaus to the floor. "The Admiral wished to act like a feral beast. He shall be treated like one."
The Emperor’s voice boomed across the terrified, silent gallery.
"Throw him into the Abyssal Dungeon. Take him to the deepest cell, where the ocean bleeds through the rock. Give him no light. Give him no blood. Let the sea salt burn his wounds, and let the feral starvation eat his mind until there is absolutely nothing left of the man."
"No!" I shrieked, struggling frantically to push myself up.
A guard stepped forward, grabbing the iron chain connecting my wrists, and yanked my arms violently upward. The metal bit into my skin, forcing me to my knees.
The guards hauled Klaus off the floor.
He was entirely limp, his body ruined by the bludgeoning and the suffocating collar. Blood dripped steadily from his nose and the deep gash on his shoulder. But as they dragged him backward toward the heavy wooden doors leading to the subterranean depths, he forced his heavy head up.
His sapphire eyes found mine through the dim, jaundiced light.
He didn't look defeated. The despair was gone, replaced by a fierce, burning awe. I hadn't betrayed him. I had lied to the Emperor, I had stabbed a Commander in the throat, and I had fought for him. That knowledge alone seemed to fortify his shattered soul.
"Klaus!" I screamed again, thrashing against the guard holding my chain.
The heavy oak doors groaned open. The dark, suffocating shadows of the stairwell swallowed him whole. The doors slammed shut with a booming, final crash, severing the sight of him.
The physical separation was an absolute, blinding agony. The blood-bond pulled taut in my chest, a heavy iron hook dragging painfully against my ribs as he was taken deeper and deeper into the dark.
I slumped forward, entirely spent, my tears mixing with Thorne’s blood on the marble floor.
"And as for the little bird," the Emperor murmured, turning slowly back to face me. He gestured to the massive, ornate gold wire structure sitting to the left of the ivory throne.
"Put her in the cage," the Emperor commanded.
Two guards grabbed my upper arms, hauling me off the floor. My bare feet dragged through the blood. I didn't have the strength to kick them. My muscles were completely unresponsive, drained by the adrenaline and the phantom pain echoing through the bond.
They dragged me across the dais and threw me through the open door of the cage.
I hit the stiff velvet cushion hard, scraping my elbows against the floor. Before I could even push myself up, the heavy gold door slammed shut.
A massive iron padlock was threaded through the thick gold loops on the outside. It snapped closed.
"Leave her," the Emperor instructed the guards, waving his skeletal hand dismissively. He turned his blind eyes toward the gallery. "The court is adjourned. Let the Siren sit with her choices, and let the Empire see what happens to those who bite the hand that feeds them."